Tag: anger management

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Damned Scavengers

We managed to get out of the house early today, so I made a last-second decision to grab Hardee’s on the way out of town. Dexter was at work today, so Muad’Dib ran around with him just a little bit in the morning before we went back upstairs to continue reading through Intune policies.

It was chilly out by lunch time, so I just went to McDonald’s for another Big Arch. There was already a line of disgruntled people there, so I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I saw they didn’t make my burger to order. I went to have them remake it, and of course my somehow-perfect fries were cold by the time I got back to them.

The afternoon dragged a little bit as I went through security baselines, and then we headed home. Summer was just getting into a bath, so we didn’t get to go walking right away. I waited for her to get out, and then still had to talk her into going out again.

We walked to my parents’ house to see them, then came right back. Dad gave me some more rat poison because the stuff I had already put out was already gone, and we still had rats. They also ate all of the bait I put on the bucket trap, but didn’t actually get trapped. I hate to use a glue trap, but I’m running out of options.

Eaddie ate my leftover Hawaiian Bros. again, so I went to bed pretty angry, but at least this time it was my fault for not having finished it by now.

Kindly fuck off.

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I’ll Tost’a My Own Guac

I slept hard through the first few seconds of my alarm this morning, then dragged out of bed. I didn’t go to sleep super late, but I must have been in a deep slumber. We made it to work in spite of the asshole guarding the left lane by speeding and slowing down around me for no apparent reason. I wasn’t driving inconsiderately to begin with, but he couldn’t keep up when I decided to pass him for good.

I was proud of how busy I stayed all day, and I felt like I got some good stuff done, even if they were all short-term tasks. I was rewarded with Ortega’s for lunch, but was told I couldn’t have a tostaguac, so I just ordered a tostada and chalupa, then sandwiched them together to accomplish the exact same thing.

The afternoon was busy as well, and we ended up leaving just a few minutes late, which landed me in some slightly heavier traffic for a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. We found Summer at home finishing up her schedule, so I started some laundry and cleaned up a little bit. We saw Eaddie for just a moment, and then she was gone again. Brandie texted and I caught up with her for a while, and eventually made it to bed.

No cheese for you.

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Decompresso

I just barely crawled out of bed this morning from the exhaustion I felt after this weekend. We managed to get to work, but only after I saw a notification that McDonald’s had $1 Egg McMuffins . We soldiered on, and made a little bit of progress all day.

It was nice out, so we went to Sonic for lunch and just enjoyed some time outside. The afternoon went by fairly quickly after that. We stopped by the old house to pick up a couple of things, and talked to David from next door for quite a while. He seemed excited just to see a neighbor. Then we made it home to an empty house.

Summer was at the gym for a while after a trying day. Eaddie had eaten my leftovers, so I had some drinks while I cleaned up in the dining room. It was a quiet evening until bedtime.

I have not been myself for most of my life.

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The Cat’s Outta the Fence

I felt a little better this morning, and stayed fairly physically busy all morning trying to make a patch cable out of some crappy, old wire. I went through a couple sets of ends before I gave up in favor of a different option. We went to Arby’s for lunch, and then I called to reserve a room for the Cavalcade of Magic when we got back to the office.

We were parked and sitting in the car, and Muad’Dib and I watched as a cat stalked through the grass on the other side of the fence that divides our property from the Interstate. I was still wrapping up my call when he started whimpering. The cat was out of sight and I thought Muad’Dib had given up, but as soon as I let him out, he ran out the front gate and leapt over a part of the fence that was leaned over. I wasn’t even sure he would be able to get back across due to the way the fence was leaning and how far he jumped. Luckily the cat ran back toward me instead of toward the highway.

They ran toward the building, and then the cat got into the drainage pipe that goes under the road, so luckily Muad’Dib didn’t fit. I got hold of him and gave him a good kick to the rear, then dragged him back to the car to get collared. We went inside and it wasn’t long before we were called down for cake to celebrate Elizabeth’s upcoming wedding.

We surprised her in the breakroom, had cake, and visited briefly before finishing up the afternoon. I got a text that counseling could be in-person tomorrow, so I got permission to leave at lunch time and finish the day from home. We got to the house a little while after Summer, though she was still sitting in her car when we got there. She bathed and I ate some leftovers, and then we watched YouTube as she passed out on the couch.

After she went to bed, I finished the evening filling out a bunch of intake paperwork for tomorrow. For now, it’s more of the same.

At least one of us has laser-focus.

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Lessons Fought

Eaddie called me a little after midnight, which of course startled us both. I tried to answer, but then she walked around the corner toward the bedroom and said she needed help. Summer jumped up too, but I dressed and followed her outside to investigate. Eli was sitting in the Pathfinder in the driveway right behind my car, and had gotten stuck on the ice slope.

We couldn’t even walk on the ice because it was so slick, so I got a couple containers for the kids to shuttle water back and forth. Eaddie was minimally helpful, and sassed me any time I told her to do anything. Summer eventually came out with my axe and started whaling on the ice to break it up. After a couple hours, we finally got free and climbed out of the driveway. I mentioned Eaddie’s attitude to Summer, and she decided to address it right away before the kids left. Of course Eaddie started crying in frustration, which broke Summer down. I meant for it to be discussed later, but apparently Eaddie had previously expressed wanting to be called out on the spot. They left and Summer and I struggled to go back to sleep.

As tired as I was in the morning, we made it to work for a long day. Rhonda said Muad’Dib had peed on Teddy’s bed in their office, which surprised me since he’s usually right around me. I tried to stay focused, but had a pretty bad anxiety attack in the morning. We got mozzarella sticks from Sonic, then a box from Taco Bell since it actually felt reasonably nice outside. Some old jackass parked crooked next to me, but luckily I could Summon my car out of the spot and load Muad’Dib back in when we left.

The afternoon dragged on a bit, and then we headed home. Janice gave me some money for gift cards from Old South and Brown’s, but the latter would be closed until the next day. The girls were at the house when we got there, but things seemed quiet. Summer bathed and I left to pick up some food. Eaddie denied hunger, but I knew she would eat, so I picked up a bunch of wings from Buffalo Wild Wings, and then a plate from Panda Express. Buffalo Wild Wings was terribly slow, and the boneless wings were terribly small, and of course Panda Express had boxed up my order half an hour before I finally got there.

We all sat down to eat, which was nice, but then Summer quietly summoned me to the bedroom for a talk. I think we both knew Eaddie was really upset that Summer had reversed her decision to get out by the end of the week, but I guess they talked about it and it had them both very bothered. I went to talk to Eaddie about it myself, and I felt like we had a pretty good conversation. Of course I won’t know how she really feels, but hopefully she and Summer can revisit later, and I’m sure we’ll be fine if we can all agree to focus our energy in a positive way.

Eaddie left to practice at Witherspoon, and I rushed to bed without much of a catch-up session with Summer. The less energy we have to spend on catching up for things like this, the better.

Beat the keys out of it.

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Out of Nerves

I fell asleep late, but surprisingly woke up fairly early. Summer got up for coffee, and I made us a couple more sandwiches. I thought it would be a good, productive day, but Summer almost immediately started irritating me by being loudly obtuse. I just had to walk away before my inside thoughts got too mean, but of course that upset her too. I thought she left for the gym, but she actually just quietly started cleaning the laundry room, and rearranging everything in there. I walked out of my office and the house was cold because she had the door wide open while she was doing that.

Things just got worse all day long, as I struggled to make sense of how she had compacted everything. I didn’t really get anything accomplished except for the cooking of some old food that needed to be consumed. I started the turkey carcass in the Instant Pot, and boiled the liver and leftover broccoli stems for Muad’Dib.

Dad called and needed to borrow a carpet cleaner, and somewhere along the way, the handheld one got a damaged charge port. I blamed Summer because she had just moved it in her cleaning, but that upset her too. Dad had to bring it back and swap for the upright carpet cleaner. I took Muad’Dib for an early run while the sun was up, and then spent the rest of the evening finishing up the turkey broth and beans. It wasn’t anything like the soup I wanted to make, and it was more beans than soup, but it was edible, and it got junk out of the fridge and turned it into something that everyone will have to eat.

no improvement

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Gumball

We finally had our staff meeting this morning, and I did my best to represent well. Afterward, we had a pretty boring call with more of the same from Aptean. It always feels like a sales call, promising more from their future plans. I bounced around a lot after that.

We took a really late lunch and I had my McRib. Then the afternoon was a bit slow and quiet. Summer had her company Christmas party, so we got back into town and I picked up some Taco John’s to eat before going.

I dressed Muad’Dib up in his ugly sweater and antler headpiece, and we went to attend at the lube. Summer was like a nervouos teen, hoping all of her friends would show up, and I just felt bad. Muad’Dib got a decent amount of attention, and then Summer made me play Dirty Santa with them, so I stole a gag gift to give out at my own Christmas party.

I was feeling pretty melancholy afterward, so I decided to take Muad’Dib to PetSmart again. They would be closing within minutes, so instead we stopped in the parking lot so he could go to the bathroom. Then we kind of cruised aimlessly toward home. I set the car to “chill” and let it go, without a destination. As we approached our side of town, a cop pulled behind me and lit me up. We pulled into the hospital parking lot where he informed me that my tags had expired. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but sure enough, they were. He let me go with a verbal warning, and I headed toward the house.

I didn’t notice, but after I walked in, Summer stopped to warn me that Autumn was there with Eaddie. It wasn’t until afterward that I noticed her text asking what I was doing and why I was avoiding coming home. It was completely loaded, because she could have sent a warning first. I immediately put my shoes back on and walked out with Muad’Dib, but she stopped me in the garage to express her own frustration at me as I trembled.

I let Muad’Dib take me for a walk through almost our entire route in reverse. We stopped at the basin and sat on a bench for a while to knock on the sky and listen to the sound. A stiff breeze came in as we eventually made our way back to the house and found our way to bed.

Unexpected, in the middle of a walking path.

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Dogtown

Summer and I happened to end up in traffic around the same time, as there had been a wreck and vehicle fire right outside of Morrilton. She continued on to Little Rock and I got to work right around eight. Janice brought a tiny little goblin dog to work, so Muad’Dib had fun running around with her. We were up and down the stairs several times and stayed really busy all day.

PetSmart called early in the morning and wanted to move Muad’Dib’s appointment up an hour, citing that they were really busy leading up to Thanksgiving, and that they wanted to make sure he had plenty of time away from other people and dogs. It didn’t make much sense to me, since I figured an appointment time was just for him, but from the sound of it, they do several dogs at once in batches, and then kennel them between steps. It didn’t make much sense to me, but luckily I remembered that Summer would be passing back through. I had her pick him up and take him home, and then Eaddie delivered him to PetSmart at three.

I grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald’s and then continued David’s quest to learn how to import documents. I got a call about an hour and a half earlier than I expected, telling me that Muad’Dib was about finished, so I headed back home to get him. They said he did well, but I was actually disappointed in how much I paid for such a short service. We probably won’t be doing that again.

Summer said something about going to the store when she got off work, so I thought I’d go with her. When I got home, the kids had eaten two of the three steaks and left me one, and Summer none. I took Muad’Dib on a quick run, and he absolutely flew down the street. When we got back, I learned that at some point, Summer thought to eat the rest of the squash, which left me with a slab of meat and literally nothing else. The kids went with her to the store, so Muad’Dib and I went to Taco Villa.

They had my taco salad made quickly, and I didn’t notice when he followed me in the door, but we got back outside and ate at a picnic table in the cold. It was nice to decompress. Afterward, we went by the old house to look for a few things. Dad had emptied the cabinets, but I was lucky enough to find one of the things I was looking for.

When we got back to the house, Eaddie told me that they weren’t going to see Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox with us because she just learned that they wanted to record for the Tech band album they’re releasing. I tried to talk to her about commitments, but that fell on deaf ears, and nobody around here is willing to put family over anything else.

Well I guess if you want to be alone, be alone

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Ice Cold

I continued to doze on and off this morning, slipping in and out of different dreams. Summer wandered the house loudly until I got up to some breakfast. She started to cook some bacon, but then left the stove on with nothing on the burner while she went to the bathroom. I got up and put the bacon on, but then she came out and took over to scramble some eggs for me. They came out grey and wet because she scrambled them with pepper. Afterward, we moved the couch so we could vacuum the other half of the living room, and then Summer had to mop the floors because she didn’t pay attention to all the mud in the back yard when she let Muad’Dib out.

I worked on some reviews and then started to get cleaned up so I could at least go to Eaddie’s pregame show. Summer left first, and then I got my socks wet because Summer didn’t dry the floors after she wet mopped, so I just stayed home. That was when I discovered the mini fridge had frozen up around a few cans, which subsequently froze, bloated, and leaked everywhere. I started to clean that up and let it defrost while I vacuumed behind what Summer had done. No surprise, there was still a bunch of that fine powder all in the carpet.

Hours went by as I cleaned, and eventually I quit to take Muad’Dib out on a run. It was pretty cold out, so he did great to run the whole time. We went to Ridgewood and had a Frito chili pie, and then ran into Eric and Carlie as we left. We made it to see my parents, and then got back to the house where Summer was warming up in a bath.

I was pretty exhausted and exhasperated by then, so it was an early, early night to bed.

subzero

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Lockdown: Not Just for Schools!

I thought McDonald’s would be busy again, but we breezed right through for a coffee. Mitch called just as I was leaving the house, so I called him back to tell him all about our resident alien. After that, the drive in got a little crazy because some idiot with out-of-state tags was cruising in the passing lane, below the speed limit, in perfect lockstep with a semi truck in the right lane. A whole line of cars was swerving and peeking around angrily, trying to pass. I finally got around and slowed way down in front of him to try and get him to move over to let other cars pass, but I also had an upcoming exit.

I cooled down at the office and got into some stuff there. We didn’t have a call in the morning like I expected, but I dug into the security stuff all day. We went for our Big Mac break and I had an apple pie with a vanilla cone, and it was spectacular. I was surprised how good their ice cream was, and the apple pie was perfect with it.

When we got back from lunch, I spotted no fewer than three cop cars near the property, including one parked right near where I always park. Teisha didn’t answer her phone, but I got a hold of Tammy, who let me in and said there was a car chase, and they thought someone jumped our fence. They had locked down the best they could while operations continued in the plant. Muad’Dib and I went back to work.

The afternoon wasn’t very fruitful. Kandi finished her last day without much fanfare that I could see. Muad’Dib and I left a little late, so I skipped our slushie stop and we made it home through heavy traffic. It wasn’t very long before Dad texted that they had bún thang for dinner, so Summer got out of her bath so we could go eat. Muad’Dib got a little antsy, so I let him out to run part of the way. Dinner was good, but we headed home soon after because Summer had an early run in Conway the next morning.

Eaddie was home briefly but left. I was feeling pretty worn down, so I didn’t stay up much later than usual before going to sleep.

Some guard dog.